The 2010 NBA Summer Leagues are less than four months away!

If you weren't aware, Ridiculous Upside switches your regular programming once the D-League season ends to the Summer League and the NBA Draft circuit.  Even without anything happening in the D-League, there are still players out there with Ridiculous Upside that you need to know about.

That said, NBA.com's Art Garcia has been tweeting lately about the 2010 NBA Summer League schedules, and well, I'm excited.

First, there will be four NBA Summer Leagues this July, up from two (Vegas and Orlando) last year:

NBA Summer Leagues: Vegas (July 9-18), Orlando (July 5-9), Utah (July 24-30), Chicago (July 11-15)

Wait, The Rocky Mountain Revue is back? And what's the deal with a Chicago Summer League? Garcia says:

RMR is back & Chicago SL is closed to public.

Which teams will be where? Well, we don't know that yet, but Garcia does have this informational tweet:

Vegas 20-22 teams, Orlando 6-8 teams, Utah 6 teams & Chicago 5 teams. Don't have specific teams yet.

Now all that's left is how I'm going to make sure I'm in attendance - if I were a millionaire (or even a thousandaire, actually), It'd be awesome to spend July in Orlando, then Vegas and finally Utah.  That said, I hope to at least be in Vegas again.

Kasib Powell, who played well in Orlando is back in Jersey, doing some things for his foundation and checking in with RU.  If you have any questions for him, leave a comment and we'll try to get them answered next time he checks in.  -- Scott

Hello to everyone!! Since I have been home from the Orlando Summer League I have been putting a lot of time into my camp which starts Aug 3-7. The camp is a skills camp for ages 9-18. The camp will help young players with their fundamentals and also teach them about being a complete athlete - things like nutrition, getting rest, teamwork, hard work, and dedication. I have more information on my website, www.kasibpowell.com

With that being said I can start to elaborate on what happened in Orlando: I will start with letting the readers know that I have been through many summer leagues and that this was the hardest I've been in - by far.  Still, it worked out just right because I was in the best shape of my life when I went out to Orlando. Imagine if I wasn't ready, or at least in great shape? I wouldn't have lasted more then two days. Even though I was in great shape, the week before the games was brutal! It did, however, show who had worked out before they got to summer league and who was chillin' and enjoying there off-season a little too much!! During the games I did play well but I'm my hardest critic and I believe that I could have played better. I finished up averaging 15 points, 6 boards and 3 assists. I also shot 49% from the field and 57% from the 3-point line.

I finished up second team all Orlando Summer league. I really wanted 1st team but I couldn't be mad because James Harden was named to the 1st team. Whenever someone is ranked or placed in front of you, (pause) it makes it a lot easier to sleep when you have respect for the other persons game. Out of the 10 people named to 1st and 2nd teams, everyone was a draft pick. 1st team, Russell Westbrook (lottery (4th pick)), Harden (lottery (3rd pick)), Tyler Hansbrough ( lottery (13th pick)), Ryan Anderson (20th pick), Roy Hibbert (18th pick). The 2nd team was J.R. Giddens (1st rd), D.J. White (1st rd) Marreese Speights (1st rd) Nick Fazekas (2nd rd), and nobody else but your boy, undrafted, no contract(!) Kasib Powell. This is why I push to be at the top level. I belong here!

Kasib

(JERSEY)

Well, I decided I have way more to write about, so maybe when Jon L and Aisman need help, I'll throw a random Summer League story up.  The following chronicles my first four days in Vegas.  Tell me how much it sucks.  I think I forgot how to write.

Basically, I felt like giving the guys a break and since I was in Vegas for 12 days watching basketball working for the Summer League and all I came back with is my report from yesterday, I decided to give you all a look at what happens behind the scenes at Summer League.  It sounds lame, but once I start writing, maybe there'll be some interesting tidbits.  I know, I realize you're on the edge of your seat, so let's begin.

First, my plane ride.  Excitingly, there are one-way trips from Bismarck, North Dakota to Las Vegas, Nevada, and they're cheap.  So that's how I got to Vegas.  Allegiant Air, baby!

From the airport, I was picked up by the one and only Mr. Deane Martin (former Dakota and Bakersfield assistant, and likely D-League head coach this season), as my Summer League issued hotel room wasn't ready until the next day.  When we arrived at Deane's, I was told that the couch was my bed and we were going to work out.  In Bismarck, I run around the golf course every night.  In Vegas, I'd die if I ran outside.  So I ran inside, and showed my superb cardio off to the ladies.  Deane is in better shape than me, and also only eats organic food.  Neat.

That night, we were going to go to the Blue Martini, but didn't meet the dress code.  We ended up at the Cadillac Ranch where they had mechanical bull rides and $2.50 beers.  We liked.

The next day, Deane dropped me off at the Thomas & Mack for the NBA Summer League Intern Walkthrough.  Nothing exciting happened, except I found out I was actually going to have to do work - Game Op's Manager in the Thomas & Mack.  Bonus - it looks good.  Downfall - I have to wear a headset for six hours a day and be held accountable.

The job of a Game Op's Manager is this: Make sure everything happens while the ball isn't in play.  I wore a headset and told: the music guy when to play music, the jumbotron guys when to run a commercial, the PA guy when to do a PA read, the scoreboard operator when to buzz the teams during a timeout, my Spirit Squad when to do a T-Shirt Toss, my intern when to take pictures and when to get me dinner.  I also walked the National Anthem singer's out and turned on the mic for them, briefed the halftime performances, told the camera guys when somebody important was in the crowd so they could get him on the big screen and of course played the Ultimate Warrior theme whenever I had to fill in for the music guy so he could go get something to eat.  Essentially, I made sure the game ran smoothly and as quick as possible - to the point of telling the officials to get teams in and out of the huddle quicker.

Before the Thomas & Mack opens, I helped out in the Cox gym: get starting line-up's baby.  I really wish I could find a job that only required me to get starting line-up's, because that'd be a fun job.  Or it should be, but day one, my heart was broken.  I ran down to the dungeon, got the officials names (told D-League official Nick Buchert who I was, but didn't seem impressed), met Brent Petway and got the Lakers starting line-up's.  However, I noticed a problem.  Luke Schenscher wasn't starting!  Did Chucky Brown make a mistake?  Did I mishear "Ben McCauley" for "Luke Schenscher?"

I go back to ask Chucky (He's a D-League assistant, so I assume we're friends) where the hell Luke Schenscher is and why isn't he starting!?  Chucky replies "Yeah, he was on our roster, but he didn't make it out here.  He was in L.A., but didn't make the cut for the final roster."

At first, I thought he reads my blog, knew Schensch was my boy and decided to trick me.  I watched the starting line-up's, hoping to see Schenscher rise up from the elevator and have this scene play out (music and all), culminating in Luke being able to show the world how he can dominate the NBA.  Unfortunately, this wasn't the case and I lost all hope.  Forever.

When the Thomas & Mack finally opened, myself and crew (my intern Justin, David on the tunes and my security guard Tracy just in case things got out of hand) got down to business.  Unfortunately, our business sucked a bit at first.  

Apparently David forgot to test out the National Anthem on his computer and an epic debacle ensued.  How epic?  Well, enough for us to make it into the Washington Post (Thanks, Dan Steinberg!).  

We recovered nicely though, and no one wrote about us in a major newspaper again, to my knowledge.

Now that we've assessed who played well in this year's Summer League,  both in Orlando and in Vegas, I thought I'd talk about an idea I mentioned in the comments a few days ago: next year, there should be more D-League teams.  There were too many D-League guys stuck on the end of Summer League benches or only playing in one or two games for the current system to really benefit them.  Assuredly, there were some NBA teams that "got it."  Orlando, Denver and the Knick all come to mind as teams that invited players who spent all or part of last year in the D-League and then, and this is important, let them play.

Now, this is not necessarily the fault of the NBA teams.  Some of them have several young players or guys who are under contract that they need to figure out what to do with.  About half of San Antonio's roster was made up of guys who they've drafted in the last few years, for example.  That meant that Squeaky Johnson only appeared in two games, and Erik Dawson didn't play at all.  Now, neither of those players are on the short list of likely NBA call-ups, but they still have some talent and weren't able to demonstrate it.  There were some guys who didn't play due because they couldn't - David Noel and Patrick Ewing Jr. of the Knicks' team were both sidelined with injury.  But Maureece Rice averaged nine minutes in Vegas.  Dwayne Jones played a total of nine minutes over only two games.  Trent Strickland played in two games.  Rod Benson appeared in three games, and after playing a little over 11 minutes in the first he never played more than 3 and a half minutes in the others.  Dominique Coleman averaged less than six minutes over three minutes. Et cetera.

My solution?  More D-League Select teams.  The one team.  Even excluding the D-League players who were out with injuries, there are enough guys who did play to form three additional 10-man rosters of players who come from the D-League.  You also could establish fewer teams with more than ten players on each roster, as the injuries suffered by Othyus Jeffers, Trey Johnson and meant that this year's D-League Select team found itself shorthanded at times.

Below the jump I discuss the advantages I see for everyone involved.

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As you more than likely know, I was in Las Vegas, Nevada running the game op's during the Vegas Summer League, which is why I haven't checked in with you all for a couple of weeks.  From Wednesday, July 8th right up until an hour and a half before we announced Rory White as head coach of the Dakota Wizards on Monday, I watched basketball.  Hours and days and weeks of basketball, focusing on players the average fan has never heard of, and in all likelihood, even the more astute fans will probably never know much, if anything, about the majority of the guys that played in Vegas.

Don't worry - I'm here to help.  I planned to do this earlier, but between being busy with life and catching up on missed sleep due to nights of walking the strip with my boys drinking $1 Michelob Lights (I'm on a budget), I'm just getting to this now.  Tomorrow, I'll present my stashed random anecdotes and what not from Vegas, because not everything that happened to me needed to stay in Vegas.  First though,  I present my team of players that impressed me and either looked bad in the box scores or didn't impress Jon L enough to put in his two-day recap.

C - Garret Siler, Minnesota Timberwolves: Siler is actually the reason I decided to write this recap, because even though I couldn't keep up on the internets due to the $10/day for internet at my hotel, I know he wasn't gushed about enough.  Siler, believe it or not, has Ridiculous Upside©.  He's a legitimate 6'11, 300ish pound center.  He's a project, definitely, but a project worth paying!  Soft hands, good hustle, good instincts, rebounded well and he showed decent touch around the basket.  Of course his conditioning could improve, but he's more in shape than Sean May, so that should count for something.  I sincerely thought he'd be perfect for the Wolves, as he's impossible to box out and set great screens to get Jonny Flynn open, but according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he's in mini-camp with the Hawks.  Well, it seems they could also use a big man to take some heat off of their star player - I like Siler's chances.  If he doesn't make an NBA team to begin the season, I'll be texting him about the benefits of playing for the Dakota Wizards - hope there aren't any tampering regulations in the D-League.

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In the wake of Vegas Summer League being over, and as I did with the Orlando Summer League, I've been taking a look at some noteworthy performances from "non-NBA" players.  Part 1 dealt with guys who have been playing in Europe or who otherwise aren't currently under contract anywhere.  Today examines the players from the D-League who were in Vegas, either on the D-League Select team or on an NBA squad's roster.  Again, I'm only concerned with players who played three or more games, in order to get some semblance of sustained (such as it is) success (this means no Othyus Jeffers or Trey Johnson, who each played very well in two games for the D-League squad).  I wanted to limit it to ten guys, but I cheated a bit and threw in an honorable mention category (which makes even less sense since the 10 guys aren't ranked in any way), which we'll look at first.

Honorable Mention: Brent Petway, Romel Beck, Mouhamed Sene, Will Conroy

Petway complemented Raptors rookie DeMar DeRozan fairly well, and while his scoring wasn't very consistent, he showed off his elite shot-blocking ability and averaged 3.6 blocks per 48 minutes, slightly more than he did last season with the Stampede.  Beck made 43 percent of his three-pointers and 52.8 percent of his field goals overall, though he didn't contribute much other than scoring.  Sene got a ton of blocks compared to his playing time, eight in 35 minutes, but while I didn't expect to see many points from him he didn't get many rebounds, either.  Conroy was a solid point guard either starting or coming off the bench, and he made 52.2 percent of his field goals, but his assists were down a little bit from what they were in the D-League on a per-minute basis.

The rest of the players are after the jump.

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Well this is it: the final day of the 2009 Summer League season.  All the players, coaches and journalists have left Vegas by now, and all of them have some evaluating to do.  RU is no different, and we'll have some analysis in the coming days, but there's one more full slate of games to go over first, so let's get to it.

D-League Select 74, Portland Trail Blazers 73

Portland Trail Blazers, you just made a fool of yourself in front of T-Bone.  On a day when no one on the D-League team played particularly well, the game was won on a Marcus Hubbard buzzer-beating three.  Othyus Jeffers and Trey Johnson missed their third straight game and were joined by Walker Russell, meaning the Selects had just seven guys available to play.As I've said before, these guys are working harder than everyone else, fighting to show what they can do until the clock hits zero.  Kurt Looby was decent off the bench with five rebounds and two blocks in a little under 18 minutes and seven points on 3-5 shooting, though he also had five fouls in that brief period.  Jasper Johnson hit all three of his shots from behind the arc and shot 6-11 overall for 16 points.  Will Frisby had some nice moves down low and finished with six rebounds, though he also needed 13 shots to score 16 points.

Jerryd Bayless also sat out this game meaning Pooh Jeter got the main point guard responsibilities, and while he finished with seven assists he also shot the ball pretty terribly.  Dante Cunningham shot 7-14, though he didn't get to the free throw line much and shot just 40 percent when he did, though he also grabbed seven rebounds.  There's not much else to say about the Blazers because did I mention that they lost to the D-League team that was without three of its best players?

The rest of final day's action after the jump.

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Denver Nuggets 94, D-League Select 90

Jasper Johnson led the Select team with 21 points on 7-13 shooting.  He shot 3-7 on threes, which means he actually shot 66 percent inside the arc.  He also had four rebounds.  Kurt Looby still has some work to do on the offensive end, as he shot 3-7 from the field and 4-7 from the free-throw line, but he also had 11 rebounds and three blocks in 23 minutes.  Only one rebound and one turnover, too, which is a positive.  Gary Forbes has played very well the last few games, and yesterday he finished with a solid line of 19 points on 5-9 shooting, five rebounds, three assists and a steal.  Coleman Collins didn't have a great shooting night (3-8), but he had seven rebounds in just under 17 minutes.

One could argue, though, that with so many D-League players on Denver's roster this was a win for them anyway.  Ronald Dupree was excellent for the Nuggets team, shooting 10-15 and scoring 23 points, with four rebounds and only one turnover.  Coby Karl wasn't bad in Orlando, but to me it feels like he's improved since then, or at least put together some all-around solid games.  Yesterday was one of those, as he shot 5-9 and added nine rebounds, four assists and only one turnover.  Richard Hendrix played only six minutes (anyone out there know why?),  but he had four rebounds in those six minutes along with four points.

The rest of the games are after the jump.

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